Healthy Aging Series

An Enthusiastic Debut to ASEF-PSOM's New Series — "Healthy Aging"

On March 26th 2015, senior and emeritus faculty enjoyed a stimulating luncheon seminar "Skip the Checklist - Aim to Age Well" in the new ASEF-PSOM's program entitled "Healthy Aging". We were delighted to have as our speaker, Dr. Sara Hope Kagan, the Lucy Walker Honorary Term Professor of Gerontological Nursing and recipient of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur fellowship in the School of Nursing.

In her unique and non-traditional presentation using cartoons to emphasize individual points, Dr. Kagan addressed the positive aspects of what we are all asking. What do we make of the current societal discourse on healthy aging? Is healthy aging a useful metric for an aging society? Or for individual lives? She offered "Aging Well" (an alternate version to our title) as a response to fundamental flaws made in the assumptions of healthy aging, and proposed parameters. One of the assumptions she questioned was on the so-called "silver tsunami" that predicts an aging world the younger members of the population would need to support. She counters this concern as most of the baby boomer generation are delaying retirement and working till much later in life. She posited that a major challenge to aging well is our being bombarded with so-called scientific information of what is portrayed as "required" to stay healthy. This results in too much attention being paid to checklists of medicines to take, food to eat and activities to undertake in order to delay aging. Instead, she argues that there is no one way to age well and that it will vary from individual to individual. Although genetic backgrounds are a factor, we should not put too much store in the notion in having a genetic destiny that cannot be changed. While we have to accept our own mortality and prepare for it sensibly, there are many individual ways upon which we should focus to remain healthy and active. "It's not your age, it's your frailty"; we need to keep mentally active and physically active. Certainly, exercise is good for you but it is important to realize it can be accomplished in activities other than specific hours in a gym-health club. Moreover, we need to maintain social relationships and promote mental activity by becoming involved in new situations and undertaking new challenges.

There were many questions for Dr. Kagan and points of discussion, always the hallmark of hours well spent!